The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 40

I catch up with Pinky in the Holiday Inn’s breakfast room. He’s drinking coffee and looking at USA Today’s weather page. The map is bright orange, the whole country caught in a heat wave.

“Hell,” he says, as I slide into the seat across from him. “You don’t look half bad for someone got hisself buried alive. What was that like?”

“Dark.”

Pinky lets out a peal of laughter that makes everyone in the room look our way. Somehow, dark strikes his funny bone and he ends up wheezing for breath. “I bet,” he says finally. A sigh. “Well, I hope to God you found out something useful.”

I shrug. “The bottom line is that Diment doesn’t know where Byron is.”

“Doesn’t know? Or wouldn’t tell?”

“I don’t think he knows. There’s something about twins and voodoo – I didn’t quite get it, but twins are a big deal. I think he wants to help.”

“But he can’t?”

“He told me a couple of things. He told me that after Byron got out of the bin, he worked as a magician under the name Maître Carrefour. Made a living that way.”

Pinky nods, and pulls out an index card from his pocket. “Carrefour, huh? We can put out an APB on that, so to speak. A magician. Got to be magicians’ societies, professional associations, booking agents. Anything else?”

“Byron’s retired – he’s not performing anymore.”

“So what is he doin’?”

“Diment didn’t know. Last he heard, Byron said he was doing real magic.” I bracket the phrase in the air with my index fingers.

“And what the hell is that? What’s the difference between magic and real magic?”

“Diment couldn’t really explain it, or maybe I couldn’t understand. Byron went through the process of becoming a houngan – you know, a voodoo priest. And the faithful, including Diment, believe that the curtain between the natural and the supernatural, between the living and the dead, is porous. And that someone like Byron can more or less fuse with a loa and perform supernatural acts.”

“Hunh. Thinka that. What else you got?”

“Byron sent postcards to Diment from time to time. The last one was from California.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Point Arena.”

“Doesn’t sound like a big town. The witch doctor – he think Boudreaux lives there?”

I shrug. “Byron sent other postcards, but Diment threw them away when he got a new one. And he didn’t pay attention to the postmarks. This was just the last one – and it came almost three years ago.”

Pinky frowns, taps his pink fingers on the table. The fine white hair on the back of his hands catches the light. “So this is it?” he says. “Maître Carrefour. Real Magic. A postmark on a three-year-old card.” Pinky shakes his head, looks at me. “For someone who spent the night in a coffin, you got fuck-all, buddy.”

On the drive back to New Orleans, Pinky tries to soften his take on things. “We may get something out of the Carrefour thing. One thing you got going for you – at least far as we know – is that you know a lot about Byron, including his name, but he doesn’t know he’s even on your radar screen. Maybe he lives in this Point Arena. We can hop on that right away. Guy like that – he might just be arrogant enough to use his own name. Until we look, there’s no way to know if he was just passing through or maybe he lived in this town for a while. Maybe long enough to leave tracks.”

I’m so tired I can’t stop yawning. “Maybe I should go to Point Arena.”

“Maybe so,” Pinky says.

Another huge yawn.

“Not restful, hunh?” Pinky said. “Sleeping in a coffin? I coulda told you that. You’re probably all ripped up with cortisol.”

“Cortisol?”

“Stress hormone.” He taps the paper. “Read about it today. No good for you.”

We roll along for a few more minutes.

“What’d it say on the postcard, anyway?” Pinky asks. “Besides this stuff about real magic?”

“It said: ‘Finished with the castle. Doing real magic now.’”

“That’s it? What castle?”

“I don’t know. Diment didn’t know, either.”

“Hunh,” Pinky says. “A castle. In California.”

I’m semiconscious when it comes to me. It’s like a bubble rising to the surface: Karl Kavanaugh sitting across from me in a booth at the Peppermill in Vegas.

He’s talking about the history of magic and how at one point, the center of magic relocated from Chicago to L.A. There was a club in L.A. The Magic Castle.

“Karl. It’s Alex Callahan.”

“Yeah, sure. How you doing? You back in town?”

“No. Actually, I’m in New Orleans. I’m just… following up on something.”

“With the Gabler murders?”

“Right.” For a moment I can’t remember how much I told Kavanaugh. Did I tell him about the boys? I don’t think so.

“How’s that going?”

“I’m making progress,” I tell him. “Reason I called – remember when you were telling me about the Magic Castle? Is that still in business?”

“Very much so. They have shows every weekend, different stages going simultaneously. Dinner and magic, that kind of thing. If you want to attend, I’d be happy to sponsor you.”

“Is that necessary?”

“Well, it’s a club. You can’t just buy tickets. You have to be a member or the guest of a member. Or belong to the Society of American Magicians.”

“I don’t know about attending a show – but thanks for the offer. The thing is, the guy I’m looking for, the one who killed the Gabler twins – I think he might have worked there.”

“Really. Got a name?”

“Maître Carrefour. His real name is Boudreaux.”

“Carrefour. Boudreaux. Hmmmm.” A pause. “No bells ringing, but that doesn’t mean much. The L.A. scene is kind of its own thing, pretty insular. And I don’t get over there much anymore.”

“Do you know someone at the Castle I could talk to?”

“Sure. Let me think.” A pause. “John DeLand, the curator, he’d be your best bet. Knows everything and everyone.”

“Got a number?”

He gives it to me, then offers to call DeLand on my behalf. “Magicians can be a little… cliquish. There’s a tendency to circle the wagons when someone starts asking questions about one of our own. If you’d like, I could grease the tracks…?”

I’m in a borrowed cubicle in the back of Pinky’s office in the French Quarter, checking my e-mail, when Kavanaugh gets back to me.

“John DeLand will be more than happy to talk to you. And yes, he remembers Carrefour – who worked at the Castle off and on for a couple of years.”

“Great. Thanks! And DeLand – he’s at this number you gave me?”

“Yes.” A pause. “Although – if I could give you some advice…?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I don’t know what your budget is, but if funds allow, it might be worth your while to go out to L.A.”

“Oh?” Actually, I’d been thinking the same thing. If Boudreaux worked at the Castle on a regular basis, he must have lived somewhere. Must have had friends, a landlord, a life. Which meant footprints.

“Thing is,” Kavanaugh says, “John’s an awfully good source, but there’ll be other magicians at the Castle who also knew Carrefour. John will be able to tell you who.”

“Right.”

“And then there’s John himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” A laugh. “John’s simply never quite made it out of the nineteenth century. He’s one of those older guys who shouts into the phone as if it’s some kind of cups-and-wires contraption. You’d do much better to sit down with him. He’s more… ah… forthcoming in person.”

“Hunh.”

“We magicians,” Karl says, “we’re at our best live and in person.” A pause. “Now, isn’t that a strange phrase, when you think about it?”

“I see what you mean,” I tell Karl, although I’m not really paying attention. I’m tapping the keyboard to see what kind of flight I can get to L.A.

“Live! And in Person!” Karl intones in a hyped-up announcer’s voice. “I mean, what’s the alternative?”